Brief encounters, lasting scars

By Emilie Eaton | San Antonio Express-News

During 10 days in late August, police say Ralph B. Torres went on a crime spree: murder, arson, aggravated assault and aggravated robbery. This is the story of the survivors, who have fought to reclaim their lives, despite constant reminders of their brief brush with violence.

When 17-year-old Mercedez Montemayor bought her first car, after a summer spent working at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, she immediately hung her late grandmother’s rosary on the rearview mirror.

The keepsake made Mercedez feel safe. She’d touch it every time she got in the car and whenever she saw an ambulance rush past, whispering a prayer that the person would be OK.

But that rosary is no longer with her.

A man approached Mercedez’s car on a humid evening in late August, pointed a gun at her, and then ordered her into the passenger seat. Mercedez later jumped from the moving car, which ended up in Mexico. Her grandmother’s rosary — and the teen’s sense of safety — was lost.

“Losing it obviously really upsets me because it’s something you can’t replace,” said Mercedez, a senior at Thomas Edison High School.

That carjacking was among a handful of connected crimes to take place in a 10-day spate of violence in late August that marred the lives of dozens of people. Police say 24-year-old Ralph B. Torres blew up a hotel room, killed a man, shot three others — including one critically — robbed three people, and stole cars from two more.

“He ruined so many lives in such a short period of time,” said Snehal Udavat, whose father Makansinh was killed and his mother wounded at their convenience store. “My life has been torn apart. And for what? Nothing.”

Over the last two months, the victims have fought to reclaim their lives, to piece together the fragments and, in one case, learn to walk again, despite constant reminders of their violent encounters.

Marc Rodriguez, 22, has returned to work and school after being shot twice. He doesn’t like going out at night any more, and he sometimes thinks loud sounds are gunshots.

Jyotiben Udavat, 57, returned to New Jersey to live with her son after she was shot defending her husband, Makansinh, who later died at a hospital. Jyotiben prays “all the time” and checks the locks on the house compulsively. Her son Snehal reads survivor accounts of gun violence, trying to figure out whether his father felt pain in those last moments.

Lee Villarreal, 29, who was shot twice, moved into a new apartment last week with his parents. The bullets shattered his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed below the waist. Doctors initially said Lee would never walk again.

Police arrested Torres on Aug. 31 and charged him with capital murder, making him eligible for the death penalty, if he is convicted. He was later charged with seven other crimes: arson; three counts of aggravated robbery; two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and possession of a controlled substance less than one gram. He is being held in the Bexar County jail.

Police also arrested Torres’ girlfriend, Alexis Garcia, 22, in connection with some of the crimes and charged her with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

In a jailhouse interview last week, Torres denied the allegations, saying he’s been set up by a group of men, whom he declined to identify. He said he has three children — ages 4, 5 and 7 — and that Garcia is two months pregnant with the couple’s second child.

“I’m innocent. I’m completely innocent,” he said. “I know with evidence they will be arrested and indicted and stuff. I know deep down I didn’t do anything to harm them.”

“All my family knows I’m an honest worker. I don’t have no business in stealing, ya know,” Torres added. “I’ve been doing good my whole life.”

Torres’ arrest comes amid a significant surge in violent crime. As of Friday, San Antonio had recorded 124 homicides, a tally that includes non-negligent manslaughter. Already, this has been the deadliest year since 2007, when the San Antonio Police Department investigated 122 killings.

According to national data, most assailants commit violent crimes against people they know, but in Torres’ case, he is suspected of picking people at random.

The victims were also strangers to one another, but in late August, their lives tragically intersected. They are now loosely bound together — in anger, fear, frustration, sadness and even guilt.

None has met, but several said they think about the others and wonder how they and their families are coping.

More than anything, they said, they wish they knew why they were attacked.

Marc Rodriguez

It was 9:45 p.m. on a Monday evening, and Marc Rodriguez was sitting in his truck talking to his girlfriend Raven on the phone after a three-hour night class.

For roughly 30 minutes, Marc watched as a couple across the street, the man dressed in all black, continued walking back and forth. He kept an eye on his rearview and side mirrors to make sure they wouldn’t approach him from behind.

Out of nowhere, a girl, later identified by police as Alexis Garcia, approached Marc’s truck and began yelling.

“I can’t work because of you,” she said.

“Are you talking to me?” Marc asked, confused because he had never met her before.

Marc hung up on his girlfriend, promising he would call back shortly. Moments later, as he tried to talk to Garcia, Torres allegedly shot at Rodriguez through the back driver’s window. The bullet grazed Marc’s cheek and hit him in the lip, leaving it hanging down his face.

Marc jumped into the passenger seat, huddling in a fetal position in the leg space. The assailant continued firing, hitting Marc in the back, within inches of his spinal cord. Today, the bullet remains lodged there, a bruise indicating where it pierced the skin.

Inside the home, Marc’s father Frank heard the gunshots. He peeked through the window and saw a man shooting into his son’s truck. He ran outside and began chasing the man down the street.

“He probably thought I was dead,” Marc said.

Garcia tried to bluff Frank, telling him he was chasing the wrong man. But Frank didn’t believe her and continued chasing the man later identified as Torres toward Interstate 10. Torres escaped, running across the highway, police say.

Frank was able to briefly apprehend Garcia, but she was also able to escape.

Meanwhile, Marc made his way from the truck into the home. “I think I’ve been shot,” he told his younger brother. As Marc pulled up his shirt, his brother saw the wound in the mid-back.

Marc was rushed to the hospital, where doctors mended his lip. They decided not to remove the bullet from his back, fearing surgery could cause paralysis.

Within an hour, doctors would rush a 57-year-old woman and 61-year-old man to the same hospital room: A couple, shot by a single suspect.

Marc was discharged from the hospital the following morning, and he took the next couple weeks to recover. While he waits for his medical bills to arrive, his girlfriend set up a GoFundMe account.

He’s returned to his one class at San Antonio College, where he’s thinking of majoring in business, and working full-time as a cashier at H-E-B.

Marc said he fluctuates between moments of sadness, anger and gratitude. He tries to act tough for his family and friends but will occasionally have flashes of paranoia or fear.

The shooting was a reminder, Marc said, of all that’s important in his life: Helping his dad around the house, staying on track with school, gaining his independence, achieving his dreams, and keeping his girlfriend happy.

“I’m grateful for everything I have. I could have been dead,” Marc said. “I’m grateful for my friends, my family, the people that care about me, the opportunity to go to school, the opportunity to do whatever I can do. I’m grateful to be alive, to have emotions, to breathe and talk, to feel happiness, pain, sadness.”

Mercedez Montemayor

Just 15 minutes after Marc was shot, Mercedez Montemayor had parked her 2004 Kia Amanti in the Subway parking lot at 2400 West Avenue.

Mercedez, an “A” and “B” student at Edison High School who is taking AP and honors classes, loved having her own car. She would offer to pick up and drop off friends from school and work, even if they lived miles from her.

She began texting her friend Melva, who worked at Subway. Whenever she picked up Melva from work, she offered to throw out the trash because Melva was too short to reach the trash bin.

Mercedez hadn’t finished her text when a man, later identified by police as Torres, approached the driver window with a gun drawn.

Mercedez didn’t have time to lock the doors or drive away. He opened the door and ordered her to get in the passenger seat.

It’s a moment Mercedez would later think about over and over again, wondering if she could have stopped him before he got in the car, before he went on to kill and wound others.

As Mercedez climbed into the passenger seat, she pretended to struggle and honked the horn seemingly by accident, hoping her friend would notice.

The man started driving. Mercedez kept her eyes on the road, not wanting to give him reason to believe she could identify him later.

“The only thing I was thinking about was that I wanted to stay alive,” Mercedez said.

“She later told me she didn’t want (the police) to call me and say she was dead,” her mother Kimberly Kowalik said.

The man put the car in reverse, and Mercedez took a chance. She opened the door and tried to roll out of the moving vehicle, but the man grabbed her by the sweater and pulled her back in.

After a brief struggle, she was able to push herself off the car floorboard and onto the pavement. She ran to the Subway, where Melva and the other employees had opened the door. They had noticed Mercedez honk and drive away, but didn’t see the man or think anything suspicious had happened.

The three hid in the back of the Subway behind the freezer, scared that the man might come back and start shooting at the store. Police arrived within minutes.

Mercedez called her mom and they stayed on the phone while she drove to the restaurant. As they waited inside, they heard updates from the police. Mercedez’s car had been seen at the Quick Stop convenience store, police said. A couple had been shot.

That evening, Mercedez lay in bed with her eyes wide open. The suspect was still out there, and at that point, police weren’t sure whether the other victims would survive. Mercedez might be the only living witness, they told her.

Her mom, Kimberly, and her boyfriend sat in the garage with the door open, guns in hand.

Mercedez refused to sleep for two more nights, until Wednesday morning, when police notified her family that a suspect had been arrested. On that Friday, she returned to school, escorted by police from her car to the front doors.

In the days that followed, Mercedez took inventory of all that was lost: clothes, school books, the car, which Torres had driven to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and abandoned. It was uninsured for theft, so her mother set up a GoFundMe account so Mercedez can buy another.

But the most precious item was the white rosary that belonged to her maternal grandmother, who died of congestive heart failure when Mercedez was just 4.

After her grandmother died, Mercedez would tell her mother that she could see “Nanny” at school, at home or the park. To this day, Kimberly isn’t sure whether Mercedez actually saw her grandmother’s spirit or imagined it, as children can do.

“I always kept it next to my bed. I always felt like I was close to her, even though I didn’t know her that much,” Mercedez said. “When I first got my car, that was the first thing I wanted to put in there. It was hanging from my rearview mirror.”

Makansinh and Jyotiben Udavat

Police said Torres can be seen in video surveillance walking to the store, picking up a soda crate and placing it in the door’s entrance to keep the door from closing.

Then, according to the video, Makansinh approaches Torres to tell him the store is closed. At that point, Torres allegedly pulled out a gun and began firing at the shop owner.

Jyotiben, Makansinh’s wife of 34 years, jumped to his defense, trying to protect him. She was shot once in the upper chest.

Torres left the store, and the couple were rushed to the hospital, to the same room where Marc was recovering from gunshot wounds.

Makansinh lost three liters of blood and died at the hospital.

About 11 p.m., midnight on the East Coast, Jyotiben and Makansinh’s only son, Snehal, got a frantic call from his mother. She was crying, explaining that both she and Snehal’s father had been shot.

Snehal and his wife, Reema, drove to the airport and boarded a plane to San Antonio.

When Snehal arrived, his father’s blood was still on the floor of the convenience store. In the days that followed, neighbors and customers stopped by, leaving handmade notes, candles, flowers and a wooden cross.

The family held a memorial service in San Antonio, and dozens showed up, many whom Snehal didn’t know.

“People have said my dad was very, very generous,” Snehal said. “At one point, my dad donated money to a family whose son had passed away and they didn’t have money for the funeral. I never knew about this until the guy came to my father’s funeral and said ‘Your dad helped pay for my son’s funeral.’”

Snehal and Reema stayed in San Antonio for two weeks, helping Jyotiben close the store, pack up the couple’s apartment, and get Makansinh’s affairs in order.

The three drove to North Bergen, New Jersey, together in Jyotiben and Makansinh’s car. On that long drive, Snehal finally had the chance to think about his father’s life and grapple with the fact that he was gone.

Makansinh was born in India, to a family with very little means.

“He came from nothing,” Snehal said. “I remember him telling me a story about him going to school in the villages. He didn’t have slippers or shoes. He said he would wrap banana leaves around his feet and they would run from one shadow or shade of a tree to the next.”

From the beginning, education was important to Makansinh. It was a value that would stay with him for the rest of his life and one that he would later instill in his son, who attended Rutgers University and now works at Octapharma, a pharmaceutical company that produces human protein products.

After secondary school, Makansinh was one of 15 students selected countrywide for a prestigious master’s program in organic chemistry.

In the 1980s, he met his wife, Jyotiben, through an arranged marriage, which was very typical in the culture at the time. Soon, they welcomed Snehal.

“When I was really young, he used to take me to the park every day. Every single day,” Snehal recalled. “We had a bicycle and he’d put me on the back and we’d ride to the park. My mom would ask me and my dad, ‘Don’t you get bored going to the park, doing the same things, playing ball, going on the slide, going to the swings?’ He’d say no.”

In the early 1990s, when Snehal was 7, Makansinh and Jyotiben immigrated to the United States to join Jyotiben’s father. They settled in a humble apartment in Piscataway Township, New Jersey.

Makansinh soon got a job at a cancer research facility, where he helped create more than 300 cancer treatment samples. It was one of his proudest achievements. Meanwhile, Jyotiben worked odd jobs, including as a cashier at a grocery store.

But in 2008, during the Great Recession, Makansinh was laid off and the company he worked for closed. For four years, Makansinh searched for a job, but he had no luck.

Finally, he secured a job operating the convenience store on Blanco Road near Hildebrand Avenue. Snehal said his father never explained how he found the job; he just announced he was moving.

Jyotiben didn’t want to move at first because her family was in New Jersey, but in the summer of 2014, as Makansinh struggled to keep the business afloat, she moved, too.

Makansinh didn’t speak of his financial struggles. It wasn’t until his father died that Snehal realized his parents’ bank account was empty, they didn’t have a dining room table, and they slept on a one-inch foam mattress. When Snehal went into his father’s safety deposit box, hoping to find a will, he found a bag full of quarters, nickels and dimes. He also kept a watch the cancer research company had given him, testimony to how much the job meant to him.

On most days, he would work from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. or midnight.

“He didn’t want to be in debt to anyone,” Snehal said. “He wanted to do his own thing. He never wanted someone to say ‘You’re here because of this and I helped you through it and you owe me.’ ”

Despite the troubles, there were moments of gratification.

In 2013, Snehal and Reema married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Reema’s hometown in India, where her family still lives. Makansinh rented a bus and invited the whole village to attend the festivities; 3,000 to 4,000 people came.

“He was very excited,” Snehal said. “He was proud of it and very excited to do this.”

Growing up, Snehal imagined that his father wouldn’t approve of the woman Snehal chose to marry, as Snehal refused to have an arranged marriage. But Makansinh and Reema were extremely close from the very beginning.

Not long before Makansinh was killed, Reema was accepted into a computer science master’s program. Snehal is glad his father knew of the achievement before he passed.

“He was so proud of her. My dad was telling my mom that when she graduates, they would fly back and go to Reema’s graduation,” Snehal recalled. “You should have heard the joy in his voice. It was just great. I thought I was happy she got in. My joy is probably not only one percent of his joy.”

Over the last two months, Jyotiben, Snehal and Reema have settled into their new life together.

Snehal helped his mother dress her gunshot wound, which he says was one of the hardest things he ever had to do, even though he had once worked as a paramedic.

Jyotiben began physical therapy, and she’s able to drive now, though she has limited mobility in her arms. Sometimes, as she and her son drive through town, she gets paranoid and asks her son to lock the doors.

“It’s a very big loss, but what can I do?” Jyotiben asks. “Nothing. I lost him in front of me. I was very scared.”

Snehal watched the video surveillance of the shooting, and he wonders what his father felt in those last moments. He reads survivor accounts of gun violence and asks his mother what it feels like to be shot.

He spends his time treasuring those good moments — his wedding in India, his father’s joy when Reema was accepted into a master’s program — while also lamenting the experiences they won’t have together.

Snehal’s cousin had a baby several months ago and visited Makansinh and Jyotiben at the convenience store in San Antonio. Snehal has photos of his father holding the baby, the joy in his face obvious.

“From what I hear from my mom, he was very eager to become a grandfather,” Snehal said. “We don’t have any children, and that’s the one thing I wished I was able to share with him.”

Snehal promised himself he would never return to Texas after the shooting, but a few weeks later, he had to travel to Houston for work. During the flight, he looked at the birds and the clouds, searching for any sign of his father.

“I’m looking for my dad,” Snehal said. “And I don’t think I’ll find him. But then a part of me says he’s with us, he’s in our thoughts, he’s in our prayers, and he’s with us spiritually. We just can’t see it.”

“Sometimes I think of physics and I say ‘Energy is not created or destroyed. It’s just transferred from one form to another.’ Maybe he’s just transformed into something I can’t see.”

Lee Villarreal

After Torres allegedly left the Quick Stop convenience store, police say he drove less than a block down Sacramento Street, stopping to rob a woman. From there, police say Torres and a man, who has not been identified, drove to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, left Montemayor’s car there and took a bus back to San Antonio.

The following evening, Lee Villarreal, 29, said goodbye to his mom, Billie, and dad, Gus, in their Alamo Heights home before heading to his friend’s Monica’s house, where he planned to spend the night.

As he left, his mom told him to stay safe.

Lee drove down Olmos Drive, and as he approached the railroad tracks near Howard Street, a man, later identified as Torres, jumped in front of Lee’s moving car. Torres began yelling frantically that his daughter was in a car accident and he needed help.

Lee, whose friends describe as a kind, selfless person, offered to help. He leaned across the middle console and opened the door.

As soon as Torres entered the car, he pulled up a bandana or his shirt — Lee isn’t sure — and covered his face. He brandished a gun, ordered Lee to drive and cursed at him.

At first, Lee thought it was a joke, but he did as the man ordered. Torres told him he needed $5,000, but Lee told him he could get $400 at most from a bank machine.

As Lee drove, he sped up or failed to use his blinker, hoping a police officer would notice and pull him over.

At one point, as Lee drove, Torres grew angry. “Do you think I’m (expletive) playing?” he yelled. He opened up the window and fired his gun in the air twice.

“No, I don’t think you’re playing,” Lee said.

After 10 minutes, Lee told Torres he could get him money at the Valero Corner Store on McCullough Avenue. Lee knew his friend Monica was down the street at the Thirsty Camel Bar and Lounge and figured he could get her attention or run to safety there.

As he drove toward the Valero, he unexpectedly pulled into the parking lot at the Thirsty Camel, flashing his parking lights as he entered. He parked and began tapping on the break, hoping someone would see the brake lights blinking erratically.

He also turned on the indoor car light, lowered the driver window and opened the sunroof, hoping someone would take notice of him. Torres didn’t seem to notice, Lee said.

Finally, Lee decided to make a run for it. He opened the door, but wasn’t able to make it. Torres began firing, hitting him twice.

Lee looked down and almost immediately saw his legs change color. He began rubbing them, but they were were numb.

“I can’t feel my legs!” he began yelling. “I can’t feel my legs!”

Within seconds, Lee’s friends were in his car, telling him to stay calm. They told him to focus on his breathing, but he couldn’t.

He also thought of his mother, who has chronic kidney failure. Lee planned to donate a kidney if he was a match, but he knew in that moment he would no longer be eligible, given the many restrictions on kidney donors.

The paramedics arrived within minutes, cutting off his clothes to see if he was shot anywhere else. They transferred him to the ambulance. He stayed conscious the whole time, except briefly when he heard the paramedics yell, “We’re losing him, we’re losing him!” Suddenly, he was jolted awake.

At the hospital, his heartbeat flat-lined at one point, and doctors had to bring him back to life.

The damage was extensive. The doctors had to remove Lee’s entire kidney. The bullets also damaged a portion of Lee’s stomach, liver and bowels. He was right: He would no longer be able to donate a kidney to his mother.

A bullet also hit his spinal cord, shattering his nerves and paralyzing him from the waist down. Doctors told him he probably would never walk again.

He underwent three surgeries and five blood transfusions. He had tubes in his lungs, liver and stomach to treat infections and drain bile.

Lee was in a medically induced coma for roughly a week.

“It was really hard those first few weeks,” said Nathaniel Villarreal, Lee’s older brother. “You could see tears go down his face.”

Lee became conscious around a week later and remained in the Ambulatory Care Unit for a month. He was moved to the rehab wing of University Hospital on Oct. 1, where he stayed for two weeks.

His medical care so far has cost $400,000, and his family expects his physical therapy to cost $3,000 a month for the next two years. Before the shooting, Lee had been trying to sign up for health insurance. His family is hoping at least some of that will be covered by a crime victims’ compensation fund and a newly established charitable account in Lee’s name at Chase Bank.

In those first few weeks after the shooting, Lee gained some feeling in his toes. He can now move his left leg, but mobility on his right side is more limited.

Some evenings, he wakes up screaming and shaking from the pain, which feels like knives scraping his bones. Sometimes, his legs lock up and his whole body shakes, almost like he’s having a seizure.

“It’s not fair,” Lee said. “Sometimes I get mad at myself for stopping to help him. Now I’m in a wheelchair, I can’t drive, and everyone is changing their lives for me.”

Physically, he is making progress. On a recent Thursday morning, he wheeled himself to the physical therapy room at the hospital, where therapists helped strap him to a robotic exoskeleton machine called an Esko GT.

The machine, designed for patients who have strokes or spinal cord injuries, forms around the patient’s body and provides power to the joints. It allows patients to take more steps in a shorter period of time and helps them relearn correct walking patterns.

Using the machine, Lee took 61 steps, twice what he had done the previous day. He also walked, with help of his therapists, on the parallel bars.

“Imagine where we’ll be in two weeks or two months,” said Emily Noll, one of the therapists.

Lee fluctuates between moments of acceptance — and a strong will to walk again — and flashes of anger and frustration. He’s 6-foot-3, a former high school cross-country athlete, something he may never be able to enjoy again.

But just as quickly as he breaks down, he snaps back, puts on a brave face and cracks a joke.

On Wednesday morning, Lee was discharged from the hospital. He climbed into his blue Honda Civic, a bullet hole still visible on the driver’s side, but this time he was in the passenger seat.

Lee and his family drove to the Department of Public Safety to get a new identification card, and then to Fidelo’s Mexican Restaurant off Wurzbach Parkway. It is one of the family’s favorite spots, and they’ve been eating there for years.

Soon after Lee wheeled through the doors, a waitress stopped at the table to say hello. “How are you doing?” Indira Lopez asked. More waitresses came by to greet them and pose for photos.

In between laughing with his parents, recounting stories and reconnecting with old friends, reality struck. Lee grew frustrated when he couldn’t get to the restroom with the agility or speed he once had. His eyes welled up, but within minutes he wiped the tears away and cracked a joke.

Later, Lee’s father Gus handed him the to-go boxes and pushed him out the door. “What? Making the cripple do all the work?” Lee joked.

The Villarreals’ home in Alamo Heights won’t fit a wheelchair, so for the time being, they are renting an apartment near University Hospital. Until the apartment is furnished, they have moved into a hotel for a few days.

As Lee wheeled out of the elevator at the sixth floor, he jokingly pushed all the floor buttons.